Nov 192022
 
 November 19, 2022  Posted by at 9:21 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,


Rembrandt van Rijn The resurrection of Christ 1639

 

Towards the Real New World Order (Batiushka)
US Lectures Allies Over Poland Missile Incident – Politico (RT)
‘The US Won’t Sacrifice Chicago For Warsaw’ (Misnik)
A Smoldering Fuse (Jim Kunstler)
‘Aid To Ukraine,’ the US Democratic Party And The Collapse Of FTX (Livshitz)
FTX Boss Accused Of Using Offshore Funds After Bankruptcy (RT)
Ukraine – Switching The Lights Off (MoA)
Ukraine Has Lost 40% Of Energy System As Kyiv Sees First Snow (ZH)
Ukraine Is ‘War Between West And Russia’ – Turkish Official (RT)
Former Trump Advisor: Biden Admin Has No End Goal For Ukraine War (JTN)
Russian Oil Price Cap Idea ‘Ridiculous’ – Former US Treasury Secretary (RT)
DOJ Appoints Special Counsel For Trump Probes, But What About Hunter? (JTN)
MTG Says Kevin McCarthy, House GOP Will Defund Trump Special Counsel (JTN)
G20 Pushes Vaccine Passports For All Future International Travel (ZH)
Colin Campbell: A Tribute To The Father Of The Concept Of “Peak Oil” (Ugo Bardi)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alex Jones

 

 

 

 

Meloni
https://twitter.com/i/status/1593793325659815936

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..Kiev, Warsaw, the Baltics and in London, they should remember what the Americans did to Hussein and Bin Laden. They are quite capable of doing the same again, pulling the plug on them all.”

Towards the Real New World Order (Batiushka)

Now we are talking about a real ‘New World Order’. This is being fought for in the Ukraine and in world political and economic fora at this very moment. And its ideological and military leader is the Russian Federation, the only country with the guts to lead the real New World Order. This will be to its credit for as long as the world lasts. In this context the Saker has written an excellent article, titled with the following hypothetical question: “What would a Russian Defeat Mean for the People of the West?” Although the Saker has given an excellent answer, I would give my own, which is a summary of his. This is: A Russian defeat at the hands of the ‘Combined West’ would mean the end of the world and therefore no New World Order.

Fear not, since Russia is not about to be defeated, the world is not going to end just yet and there is going to be, and there already is, a New World Order. Let us be frank, the Combined West has attacked Russia again and again in history. Many do not know that the Teutonic Knights in the thirteenth century were international, pan-Western. The Napoleonic Invasion of 1812 was carried out by twelve Western nationalities. The Crimean War, i. e., the 1854 Invasion of Russia, was carried out by the French, the British, the Ottomans and the Sardinians. As for the Austro-Hungarian Army and the Kaiser’s Army in 1914, that too was an effort of the Combined West, and if it had not been for the Revolution, Russia would have taken Vienna and Berlin later in 1917. And Hitler’s invasion 27 years later was equally multinational.

And such is the case today, with the Kiev regime’s mercenary army, armed by multinational NATO. Today the US mentors of the Kiev regime are desperate for peace talks to begin. Peace could have been had at any time between February 2014 and April 2022. The US did not want it then and did not allow it then, so now they will have to pay the price. The US elite knows that they are about to lose big time. This is their last chance and the last chance for the former Ukraine – for that is what we are talking about now. Like so many, these Americans have big mouths, but when it comes to it, it is all just hot air. And although Russia is talking at the US request in order to keep channels open, it is ignoring ridiculous American demands.

Today Russia has no reason to talk. It is successfully fighting against and so demilitarising NATO in the Ukraine. Everybody knows it. However, we are also at a dangerous moment because the US is losing control of its puppets. Just as it promoted Hussein in Iraq or Bin Laden in Afghanistan, ISIS in Syria and any number of Latin American gangster-puppets and then lost control of them because they refused to behave as puppets, so they risk losing control now. The lickspittle Kiev regime and its allies in Poland, the Baltics and even in the UK (there they have been singing even pop songs with an American accent for over sixty years) are being more American than the Americans. The pupil is worse than the teacher.

The recent provocation of a Ukrainian missile landing in Poland and the Poles and Latvians claiming it was Russian is an example, The Americans refused to fall for it. Before that the threat of a dirty bomb being prepared by the Kiev regime was another example. Alarmed, the Americans stopped that nonsense. The UK’s anti-German destruction of the Nordstream pipeline was yet another example. The culprit was covered up, just as the Americans covered up the culprits of MH-17. In Kiev, Warsaw, the Baltics and in London, they should remember what the Americans did to Hussein and Bin Laden. They are quite capable of doing the same again, pulling the plug on them all.

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Warsaw and Kiev try to drag the US directly into war, but the US refuses.

US Lectures Allies Over Poland Missile Incident – Politico (RT)

US officials have called on their European and Ukrainian counterparts to tread lightly when commenting on a deadly missile blast in Poland, Politico reported on Thursday. According to three Western officials interviewed by the outlet, over the last couple of days US officials have asked their European colleagues and the office of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to be careful when speaking about what caused the blast. They also reportedly made a series of urgent phone calls in which they requested that their NATO allies not make any definitive statements until an investigation is carried out. The outreach efforts come as Western and Ukrainian officials have been at loggerheads about who was responsible for the explosion in the Polish village of Przewodow close to the Ukrainian border that killed two people.

While Western officials have said that the blast was probably caused by a Ukrainian missile, Kiev insists that it was Russian in origin. According to Politico, these statements “illustrate one of the first major divergences in opinion between Washington and Kiev” since the start of Russia’s military campaign in the neighboring state in late February. US officials are trying to downplay this rift, but new fissures between Washington and Kiev may emerge as the conflict drags on, the report says. According to Heather Conley, a former State Department official, the “confusion” surrounding the Poland missile incident was a “really important test run” for the US, NATO, and Ukraine. “I think we all learned a pretty valuable lesson in [that] you cannot say something right off the bat until you understand what it is … because the stakes are so high right now,” she told Politico.

Following the Tuesday blast, Zelensky pinned the blame on Russia, calling the incident “a very serious escalation” and describing it as an attack on NATO and demanding a response. Later, however, he toned down his claims, admitting that “we do not know 100%” what caused the blast. The Russian Defense Ministry denied any involvement in the incident, saying its military experts had analyzed the photos from the scene and identified the debris as parts of an S-300 air defense system missile used by Ukraine.

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And here’s why the US refuses.

By Lidia Misnik, a Moscow-based reporter focused on the political process, sociology and international relations.

‘The US Won’t Sacrifice Chicago For Warsaw’ (Misnik)

“We approached the moment of truth in the confrontation between the collective West and Russia. When it happened, it became clear that an attack by Russia could be claimed. This situation tested the effectiveness of NATO’s strategy for ensuring the security of the collective West,” Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies Vladimir Vasiliev told RT. He noted that the incident itself featured an element of happenstance, but that it helped shed light on a long-standing question: To what extent is the West prepared to invoke Article Five to defend NATO members? As Vasiliev noted, in this situation, the West “put the brakes on everything,” and the US quickly took cover behind the version that it was a Ukrainian rocket.

“There was always a question about the extent to which the US would be prepared to intervene on behalf of Riga, Vilnius, or Warsaw, and in doing so sacrifice Boston, Chicago, or California. And now it becomes clear that there is a problem and that the US is not willing to sacrifice its own security, its own territories,” Vasiliev said. In his words, this episode is extremely important for Russia, because it shows that the US is not prepared to invoke Article Five until there is a danger to the country itself or at least to some of the most important member states of the bloc, primarily Western Europe. “There is a certain understanding that conflicts such as this one should be resolved by others. The US will gladly put Poland, the Baltic States, Bulgaria, and Romania in the line of fire while itself staying out of the war zone.

That’s where the entire NATO architecture begins to crumble. Domestic politics will always take precedence,” Vasiliev added. From this situation, he believes, a far-reaching conclusion can be drawn: Ukraine in any shape or form is not wanted by NATO. Vasiliev says it is clear that the US is playing a geopolitical game against Russia by using Ukraine, which is expendable. This allows the vital interests of Washington to remain untouched. According to him, the countries of Eastern Europe are equally considered not to be vital interests, as are Finland and Sweden, and likely Türkiye.

The calm before the storm in Ukraine – MacGregor

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“This complex fraud will smolder for a few weeks before it explodes into an extinction-grade event for the Democratic Party..”

A Smoldering Fuse (Jim Kunstler)

Thirty-seven billion more dollars for Ukraine? (That’s thirty-seven thousand millions of dollars, by the way.) Bringing the total this year to a click-or-two over ninety billion (ninety-thousand millions), on top of whatever Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX company funneled through that sad-sack international money laundromat — soon to be the darkest backwater of a European failed state since Field Marshal Melchior von Hatzfeldt of Westphalia left Bohemia a corpse-strewn wasteland after the Battle of Jankau (1645). It really doesn’t matter how much more money we pound down that rat-hole, you understand, because by the time various parties — the weapons-makers, Volodymyr Zelensky, sundry members of the US House of Representatives, the Biden family, the World Economic Forum — are finished creaming off their fair shares, poor Ukraine won’t have enough cash-on-hand to replace six fuse-boxes in Zaporizhzhia.

Against this backdrop, the USA enters a holiday season near-death spiral as unspooling scandals battle a collapsing economy for supremacy of the alt news sites. Case-in-point: the aforementioned FTX monkey business, a metastasizing tumor of the body politic. This complex fraud will smolder for a few weeks before it explodes into an extinction-grade event for the Democratic Party. The usual suspects among the mainstream media are trying strenuously to ignore it, but the shreds of this exploding money-borg are already sticking to guilty parties far and wide across the political landscape like so much rotting flesh.

FTX commander-in-chief Sam Bankman-Fried remains at large after steering the crypto-currency trading platform into a bankruptcy so hideously tangled that the assigned liquidator in court proceedings, one John Ray III, who oversaw the Enron aftermath years ago, was boggled by what he’s found so far (and it’s early in the game): Namely, a company run by a handful of twenty-something drug freaks with no idea what they were doing, no record-keeping, and a slime trail of misappropriated investors’ funds leading to Kiev and Geneva through various crooked American political action committees, and the halls of Congress — with echos in ballot harvesting shenanigans which shaped the outcome of this month’s US elections.

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“Bankman-Fried has boasted of meeting policymakers in Washington “every two or three weeks for the last year.”

‘Aid To Ukraine,’ the US Democratic Party And The Collapse Of FTX (Livshitz)

Bankman-Fried is a very well-connected figure indeed in US politics. Over the course of the 2020 presidential election cycle, he contributed $5.2 million to two super PACs supporting Joe Biden’s campaign, and was the overall second-largest individual donor to Biden that year. Such extravagant spending appears trivial today. In 2021/22, he provided tens of millions to Democratic causes and candidates, becoming the party’s second-largest donor, behind only “spyless coup” specialist George Soros. Bankman-Fried has boasted of meeting policymakers in Washington “every two or three weeks for the last year.” Over 2022, this has included multiple audiences with senior government officials and top Biden advisers at the White House. These meetings escalated in volume around the time that the Ukraine conflict began.

On March 7, exactly one week before Aid for Ukraine was launched, his brother Gabe Bankman-Fried – who directs his political operations – visited the White House along with Jenna Narayanan, a Democratic strategist who once worked for the Democracy Alliance, which has been called the “most powerful liberal donor club” in the US. Bankman-Fried himself then visited the White House on numerous occasions in April and May, concurrent with him donating $865,000 to the Democratic National Committee. In early June, mere days after his last recorded White House meet-and-greet, Bankman-Fried announced he would invest up to $1 billion in further funds between then and 2024 to guarantee Biden – or whoever might take his place – won the next presidential election. These activities have been interpreted by many as an attempt by Bankman-Fried to ingratiate himself with politicians to further his commercial interests.

It is certainly true that, at the same time, he and FTX high-rankers were attempting to influence US lawmakers on crypto regulation, to make the market more favorable for his company. In this context, the promised $1 billion appears to be a dangled carrot, an implied promise of future financing if Bankman-Fried got his way. Accompanying him on some of these visits was Mark Wetjen, FTX head of policy and regulatory strategy, who previously served as commissioner on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under President Barack Obama – but only some. Were the other meetings related to Ukraine? If so, the $1 billion pledge may have reflected what Bankman-Fried thought could be secretly skimmed from Aid for Ukraine for Democratic Party purposes. It’s conspicuous that in mid-October, he completely disowned that enormous commitment, saying, “That was a dumb quote. I think my messaging was sloppy and inconsistent in some cases.”

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“BAHAMAS GOVT ORDERED BANKMAN-FRIED TO HACK FTX SYSTEM AND TRANSFER ASSETS TO THE BAHAMAS GOVT ACCOUNT: COURT FILING”

BAHAMAS SECURITIES REGULATOR SAYS IT ORDERED FTX CRYPTO WALLETS TO BE TRANSFERRED TO GOVERNMENT WALLETS

SAM BANKMAN STOLE $300 MILLION OF THE $420 MILLION FTX RAISED FROM INVESTORS LAST YEAR IN OCTOBER. (WSJ)

SBF’s lawyers at Paul Weiss have dropped him as a client: “We informed Mr. Bankman-Fried several days ago, after the filing of the FTX bankruptcy, that conflicts have arisen that precluded us from representing him”

FTX Boss Accused Of Using Offshore Funds After Bankruptcy (RT)

The collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX has provided court evidence suggesting that its former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, had transferred digital assets belonging to the company to regulators in the Bahamas just after filing for bankruptcy. In a bombshell emergency court filing on Thursday, FTX claimed that the government of the Bahamas directed Bankman-Fried to gain “unauthorized access” while in custody. While thousands of clients have been denied access to their funds, millions of dollars in crypto reportedly continued to be drained from FTX wallets over the weekend through a back door in the Bahamas. The filing cited an interview published by Vox on Wednesday, in which Bankman-Fried expressed disdain for regulators. “F**k regulators,” he said in the interview, adding: “They make everything worse. They don’t protect customers at all.” “You know what was maybe my biggest single f**k up?” he asked. “Chapter 11.”


The motion lodged by FTX in the US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware says the alleged conduct puts “in serious question” a request by regulators in the Bahamas for recognition as liquidators in the bankruptcy. “[I]n connection with investigating a hack on Sunday, November 13, Mr. Bankman-Fried and [FTX co-founder Gary] Wang, stated in recorded and verified texts that ‘Bahamas regulators’ instructed that certain post-petition transfers of Debtor assets be made by Mr. Wang and Mr. Bankman-Fried (who the Debtors understand were both effectively in the custody of Bahamas authorities) and that such assets were ‘custodied on FireBlocks under control of Bahamian gov’t,’” the filing said. FTX, which is based in the Bahamas due to the relaxed tax laws, collapsed on November 11 in a scandal that has cost investors more than $11 billion. The debacle followed reports of mishandled customer funds and abandoned acquisition plans by rival exchange Binance. The scandal has triggered a crisis of confidence in the cryptocurrency market and caused the value of assets including Bitcoin to sink.

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“The clobber list also includes this curious item: “The strike has resulted in the neutralisation of the production capacities for nuclear weaponry.”

Ukraine – Switching The Lights Off (MoA)

The careful destruction of energy systems in Ukraine continues. From today’s clobber list as provided by the Defense Ministry of Russia: ” On 17 November, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched a concentrated strike, using high-precision long-range air-, sea- and ground-based weapons, at the facilities of military control, defence industry, as well as related fuel and energy infrastructure of Ukraine. The goals of the strike have been reached. All the missiles have accurately stricken the assigned facilities.” I have no idea if the last line is true but it does not matter much. The targeting of 330 kilovolt transformers in various switching stations has cut some 50% of the distribution capability of Ukraine’s electricity network. These transformers weigh up to 200 tons.

There are no replacements. You do not buy them at the next corner but will have order them with years of lead time. As far as I can tell Russia is currently Russia the only producer of transformers of that type. Isn’t it a war crime to destroy the infrastructure that supplies civilians? It depends. If the infrastructure is used exclusively for civilian purpose the destruction is illegal. But the electricity and transport infrastructure in Ukraine is used for civilian AND military purposes. In a recent Politico piece Ukrainian officials are even confirming that: Ukraine tells allies it may not be able to recover from more Russian attacks on energy systems: ” An unreliable energy sector could have deadly consequences, Ukrainian officials say. In recent conversations, they’ve added that it could halt food production and transport operations — critical services needed to support military operations.”

The clobber list also includes this curious item: “The strike has resulted in the neutralisation of the production capacities for nuclear weaponry.” I wonder where and what that has been: “One depot of artillery armament, delivered by western countries and prepared for being sent to troops, has been destroyed. The redeployment of the reserve forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), and the delivery of foreign armament to operations areas have been frustrated.” The last sentence describes the real purpose of the attacks on the energy systems.

The lack of energy is degrading the railway network that brings weapons from the west to the eastern front. It makes redeployment of units from one front section to another very difficult and time consuming. It will give the Russian forces the advantage when they change the Schwerpunkt of their attacks from one corner of the frontline to another. Another effect of the strikes on the electricity systems and the blackouts in the big cities that follow them is a renewed stream of refugees that will want reach western Europe. It will over time change the public opinion and the political priorities of those countries. If they fail to end the war they will have to carry the burden.

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“The New York Times notes the continued emergency that the country’s vital nuclear power plants are facing, given they themselves must rely on the national grid for aspects of their normal operations.”

Ukraine Has Lost 40% Of Energy System As Kyiv Sees First Snow (ZH)

Ukraine’s largest city and capital of Kyiv, with about 3 million residents, saw half its home and businesses plunged into darkness following Tuesday’s largescale Russian airstrikes which once again targeted energy infrastructure nationwide. Much of the electricity was restored in the capital city Wednesday, while much of it remained off in many other parts of the country. In a rare occurrence, most of the western city of Lviv had also been plunged into darkness this week, after what authorities called the biggest wave of Russian strikes on power facilities since the invasion began. “Photos of Kyiv draped in darkness have become a shareable illustration of winter in Ukraine this year: dark, cold, dangerous,” observed The Hill.

“Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is under attack from Russia, which has failed to defeat Ukrainian forces on the battlefield and is now once again targeting civilians.” An estimated 100 missiles had rained down on Ukrainian cities over the span of just a couple hours on Tuesday, chiefly targeting the energy grid. President Zelensky had already earlier in November warned that 40% of the country’s energy system has been destroyed. One Kyiv resident, Vladimir Yanachuk, was cited in NPR as saying, “We are not afraid about this. Ukrainians are not afraid about this,” while acknowledging: “Winter will be hard. But this winter will be hard not only for Ukrainians, but for Russian soldiers too.”

Temperatures in the capital and other parts of Ukraine have dipped below freezing this week, with the first snow fall of the season dusting Kyiv. The AFP reports, “The first snow of the winter falls on Maidan Square in Kyiv, blanketing its statues and anti-tank obstacles as the Ukrainian capital faces blackouts and power outages from a fresh series of Russian strikes targeting the country’s energy infrastructure.” Meanwhile The New York Times notes the continued emergency that the country’s vital nuclear power plants are facing, given they themselves must rely on the national grid for aspects of their normal operations.

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“What we want is an end to this war. Someone is trying not to end the war. The US sees the prolongation of the war as its interest.”

Ukraine Is ‘War Between West And Russia’ – Turkish Official (RT)

The West is using Ukraine to wage a war against Russia and has gone so far as to sabotage Turkish diplomacy that sought to negotiate an end to it, the deputy leader of Türkiye’s ruling AKP party, Numan Kurtulmus, told CNN Turk on Friday. “This war is not between Russia and Ukraine, it is a war between Russia and the West,” Kurtulmus told the outlet, adding that “the US and some countries in Europe” are prolonging the conflict by supporting Ukraine. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is talking to both Moscow and Kiev, said Kurtulmus, and in March managed to organize negotiations in Istanbul that looked promising. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Vladimir Zelensky, “were going to sign” a deal, but “someone didn’t want” that to happen.

According to Ukrainian media, Kiev received a message in April that the West was not interested in peace with Russia, which encouraged Zelensky to break off the talks. The messenger was reportedly none other than the UK prime minister at the time, Boris Johnson. “There was progress on certain issues, and we were reaching the final point, and then suddenly we saw that the war accelerated,” Kurtulmus told CNN Turk on Friday. “What we want is an end to this war. Someone is trying not to end the war. The US sees the prolongation of the war as its interest.” In his opinion, the conflict has made much of Europe clamor for NATO to become more active against the perceived threat from Russia, which benefits Washington.

According to Kurtulmus, the “balance of the world system disappeared” with the demise of the Soviet Union, and a “fierce power struggle” is currently taking place. “It is essential to establish a global political system. It is necessary to establish new institutions that will ensure world peace,” he said. Kurtulmus is a former Turkish deputy prime minister, who has been Erdogan’s deputy at the head of AKP since 2018. His comments came as Russia agreed to extend the Turkish-negotiated deal for exporting grain through the Black Sea by 120 days, on the condition Kiev doesn’t use the sea corridor to carry out more attacks.

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No coincidence. If you don’t want an end, you’re not going to define an end goal.

Former Trump Advisor: Biden Admin Has No End Goal For Ukraine War (JTN)

Former Donald Trump advisor Victoria Coates said the Biden administration doesn’t have an end goal for its involvement in the war in Ukraine. “I think it’s a lot of confusion within the administration,” Victoria Coates said on Friday’s edition of the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “You’ll hear the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Milley saying he wants to negotiate. Then we hear from the National Security Council that we don’t want to negotiate. So there’s friction within the administration. Unfortunately, I think that means we don’t have strong direction from the top.” Coates speculated that conflicting agendas within the administration were undermining Washington’s response to the conflict. “They’re all arguing about what kind of weapon weapon systems they may or may not give the Ukrainians,” Coates said. “They’re arguing about whether or not they should negotiate. It’s very confusing.”


Coates said that this inevitably will lead to scrutiny from the next Congress. “This is why you have a lot of concern out of the new Congress for these huge supplemental requests that are coming in,” Coates explained. “What’s the purpose here? Because if we have a strategy to win, and I think the Ukrainians have shown the will to win, how do we get them across that finish line sooner rather than later so the American people aren’t still feeling the pain of this conflict?” “We’re up against $100 billion of support to Ukraine over the course of the last 10 months,” Coates said. “Now, maybe I would spend more money if it means we’re going to defeat Putin, but I don’t hear that from the President. So I’m wondering why, in these difficult times, we’re spending all this taxpayer money.”

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“..the market is going to set the price. So if you put sanctions on at higher prices, in a way you’re just making the situation worse.”

Russian Oil Price Cap Idea ‘Ridiculous’ – Former US Treasury Secretary (RT)

Former US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has criticized the Group of Seven (G7) plan of capping the price of Russian oil in an interview to CNBC. The measure, which is due to be implemented early next month, is “not only not feasible, I think it’s the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard,” Mnuchin said. The former official said that “the market is going to set the price. So if you put sanctions on at higher prices, in a way you’re just making the situation worse.” The G7 countries, comprising the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Japan, earlier agreed to set a fixed price limit on Russian oil. The measure takes effect on December 5.

While the price level is not yet known, reports indicate it will be set at around $60 per barrel. The current market price on Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, is around $86 per barrel. Under the plan, Western companies will be banned from providing certain services for shipments of Russian oil that is purchased at a price above the cap. The list of services includes insurance and facilitating payments. The mechanism, which had been pitched by Washington, is intended to limit Russia’s revenues from energy exports, which, the West claims Moscow uses to fund its military operation in Ukraine.

Moscow, meanwhile, has increased oil exports in recent months to countries outside of the West, particularly China and India, by offering discounts to secure buyers. Analysts say that in order for the price cap to have the desired effect, the G7 would have to make sure these countries join the scheme. However, Russian officials have repeatedly stated that the country will not sell oil to buyers that agree to the price cap, which may make many reluctant to participate in the mechanism. India, for instance, recently said it sees no “moral conflict” in importing Russian oil and will buy it “from wherever” to ensure the country’s energy stability.

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This puzzles me: Garland said:“Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.”

See? They’re both candidates, but only one gets a special counsel. Where in his words is the logic? It’s not as if there is no reason to probe Hunter. And FTX should be probed too, but yes, that too is linked to Biden.

DOJ Appoints Special Counsel For Trump Probes, But What About Hunter? (JTN)

Powell’s words follow Garland’s appointment of Jack Smith, a former career Justice Department prosecutor and former chief prosecutor at The Hague, to serve as special counsel to oversee two ongoing criminal investigations. The first is the investigation into whether any individual, Trump included, attempted to interfere unlawfully in the transfer of presidential power or the electoral certification process in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The second is the investigation into the documents the FBI seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August and any obstruction of justice charges that could stem from it. Garland’s announcement came three days after Trump launched his 2024 presidential campaign.

“The Department of Justice has long recognized that in certain extraordinary cases it is in the public interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage an investigation and prosecution,” said Garland. “Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.” Trump blasted the appointment as the “politicization of justice” and said he “won’t partake in it” in comments to Fox News Digital. Observers were quick to similarly criticize Garland’s decision, noting a potential double standard as the Justice Department hasn’t named a special counsel to oversee its ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden.

“By appointing a special counsel to investigate his boss’s political enemy, Attorney General Merrick Garland continues to politicize and weaponize the Biden Justice Department — all while Garland ignores smoking-gun evidence of Biden’s foreign corruption,” tweeted Mike Davis, former chief counsel for nominations for the Senate Judiciary Committee. Other legal experts thought Garland’s appointment itself was fine but took issue with not doing the same for Biden. s”Appointment of a special counsel is a significant step, but Garland is well within his rights to do so,” said Geoff Shepard, a lawyer and author who served in the Nixon administration. “The disturbing thing is that he has not already done so with regard to the Hunter Biden investigation. It reeks of a double standard and gives critics plenty of reason to object.”

“The more he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted the spoons…”

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@JulieZebrak: “Fun fact: Jack Smith and Jim Trusty both worked in the Criminal Division when I was there. Jack was the head of Public Integrity Section aka PIN. Jim was the head of the Organized Crime and Gang Section. Jim now represents Trump.”

MTG Says Kevin McCarthy, House GOP Will Defund Trump Special Counsel (JTN)

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green on Friday said that current House Minority Leader and likely next House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would deny funding to the Department of Justice special counsel investigating former President Donald Trump. In a Tweet detailing the plan, Greene insisted McCarthy would invoke the Holman rule, a procedural measure by which the House may adjust appropriations legislation to reduce the salary of or fire specific government employees. They may also use it to cut specific programs. “Holman Rule. Look it up! [McCarthy] is going to put it in place,” Greene wrote. “That means no money for Garland’s politically weaponized Special Counsel. Don’t promise too many jobs! Whoops defunded.”

It was not immediately clear whether Greene was predicting such action or announcing that McCarthy had made the decision. Just the News has sought comment from Greene’s office. McCarthy’s office could not immediately be reached. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday that he was appointing Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee the DOJ investigations relating the former president. “The Department of Justice has long recognized that in certain extraordinary cases it is in the public interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage an investigation and prosecution,” Garland said.

“Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.” McCarthy has thus far not announced any plans akin to what Greene has indicated. The California Republican this week won his party’s nomination for speaker while the party. Republicans won control of the House during the 2022 midterm elections, meaning McCarthy will likely be the one driving the lower chamber’s operations in the next congressional session.

Trump
https://twitter.com/i/status/1593785088055029761

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Game over, guys, don’t even try.

G20 Pushes Vaccine Passports For All Future International Travel (ZH)

The G20 has issued a formal decree promoting vaccine passports as preparation for any future pandemic response in its final communique. Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin, speaking on the matter on behalf of the G20 host country, had earlier in the summit called for a “digital health certificate” using WHO standards. Sadikin advocated for that he dubbed a “digital health certificate” which shows whether a person has been “vaccinated or tested properly” so that only then “you can move around”. Watch his comments during a G20 Bali panel discussion earlier in the week… A somewhat more vaguely-worded version of these recommendations was included in the official G20 leaders’ declaration, which calls for digital COVID-19 certificates, or often simply called vaccine passports.

The section of the final communique, which is republished and available on the White House website, which deals with vaccines and the Covid-19 pandemic begins, “We recognize that the extensive COVID-19 immunization is a global public good and we will advance our effort to ensure timely, equitable and universal access to safe, affordable, quality and effective vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics (VTDs).” While describing the need for greater collaboration among nations during any future pandemic response, it continues in this section, “We remain committed to embedding a multisectoral One Health approach and enhancing global surveillance, including genomic surveillance, in order to detect pathogens and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) that may threaten human health.”

[..] Article 24 of the final G20 declaration begins, “The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the transformation of the digital ecosystem and digital economy.” And then leads into to the following statement later in the section: “We acknowledge the importance to counter disinformation campaigns, cyber threats, online abuse, and ensuring security in connectivity infrastructure.” So as predicted by many early on in the pandemic (who were all dismissed and condemned as “conspiracy theorists”), a future proposed standardized vaccine passport will be accompanied by efforts for greater standardization and policing against ‘disinformation’ – likely to include any speech critical of the type of regimen that G20 leaders wish to enact.

Read more …

“..many people misunderstood the meaning of “peak oil” and saw it as equivalent to “running out” of oil…”

Colin Campbell: A Tribute To The Father Of The Concept Of “Peak Oil” (Ugo Bardi)

Rethinking today about Colin’s legacy, we can see that he was not always right in his assessments. One of the limits of his approach was that it was focused only on oil and gas. His models were sometimes oversimplified, and, at times, he would be too quick in disparaging new technologies that could change the picture. Perhaps his main limit was to have overemphasized the importance of the peak date as a turning point for humankind and to have believed that it could be determined by models. I know that he understood that the peak was just one point in a smooth curve, and he said that several times in public statements. But many people misunderstood the meaning of “peak oil” and saw it as equivalent to “running out” of oil. For some, it was the equivalent of the religious concept of apocalypse, and that led to accusations against ASPO of being a millenarian cult of some kind.

It should go without saying that Colin’s ideas were as far from millenarism as they could possibly have been. His approach was good, data-based science, and he was fond of quoting Keynes saying, “when I have new data, I change my mind, what do you do, sir?” (actually, Samuelson said that). Colin’s capability of dispassionately analyzing data led him to avoid the mistakes that other members of ASPO made, such as putting all their hopes on nuclear energy or refusing to accept climate science as a valid scientific field. So, even though right now the concept of “peak oil” seems to be out of fashion, good ideas are like souls. They move from one generation to another, being reborn as new incarnations if they are good.

Campbell’s ideas have that power, right now they are nearly forgotten, but waiting to reappear in a suitable body, like the spirit of the Dalai Lama. We, humans, forget things so easily, especially important things. But one day we’ll understand Campbell’s main message that what we get from the Earth may seem to be free, but it must be repaid, sooner or later. And the debt recovery agency employed by Gaia is ruthless and cannot be bribed using money.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Cooling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby chimp
https://twitter.com/i/status/1593402415985971200

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle November 19 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 68 total)
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  • #121375

    Rembrandt van Rijn The resurrection of Christ 1639   • Towards the Real New World Order (Batiushka) • US Lectures Allies Over Poland Missile Inci
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle November 19 2022]

    #121378
    Redneck
    Participant

    Trump is finished, next!

    #121379
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    ““..many people misunderstood the meaning of “peak oil” and saw it as equivalent to “running out” of oil…””

    It’s like running out of breath: there’s still ample oxygen in the air but your lungs’ ability to extract that oxygen, and use it to sustain the level of exertion that requires so much oxygen, is no longer sufficient to sustain that level of exertion.

    Here is Biden (not really) as a C&W gangsta artist:

    Joe Gangsta

    From the wall of a pancake house in Longview, WA. Picture of some local big fish in a small pond.

    I have no firm position on the global climate controversy. I’ll just note that this is an example of ‘Trust the science.'<> ‘Which science should I trust?’

    Just one more thing for us to argue about while we get reamed.

    Sorry. I’d meant to leave y’all alone for awhile but my nose is rediscovering the art of spontaneous bleeding and sleeplessness is again my companion.

    Here is a pic of the cover from a book circa ’71 wherein idealistic young Boomers tried to take on the mediaplex.It was a time of defiant hope. Fun stuff.

    Guerilla TV

    Regarding Hollywood: there was no CIA when Charlie Chaplin (that evil Khazarian/Ashkanazi Jew) taught Hollywood how to crank out SERIOUS money. We all know what a fascist Charlie was, right? My best friend is a paraschizo (now in terminal decline; I listen to him babble on the phone 2-3 times a day). Even he is as adamantly certain in his unsubstantiable convictions than many are here in their belief that It’s ALL a scam. News flash: life happens without parasitic governance. Every day. Happens alla time.

    (caps alert) NOT EVERYTHING IS PART OF SOME GRAND SCHEME. I suspect that even God agrees, and God is the ultimate Wizard of Oz pulling the cosmic strings.

    #121380
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    ‘Even he is (not) as adamantly certain in his unsubstantiable convictions ‘

    #121381
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    A President Compromised

    Simple but detailed, a dry and longish read, and an excellent citation of data regarding the current regime parking its puppets in the White House.

    #121382
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “‘The US Won’t Sacrifice Chicago for Warsaw’ (Misnik)”

    Now that you mention it, Chicago is a 3rd world s—thole that I wouldn’t even know what to compare to. Corrupt, ruinous, extractive, unreformable? Compare to D.C. or Kiev? Bomb away, I guess, and save Warsaw.

    I was thinking the same thing for I dunno, practically every daily event here. State’s broke, comes down for s’more shakedown money they can spend on drugs and immigrants. Look around, Lo! There’s a violation here! –
    “This is the same place as yesterday.”
    “Why, this is un-SAFE for the people of the state, how dare you sir?”
    “We’ve done this operation for 140 years and probably in the whole time 10 people were hurt statewide.”
    “We’ll just have to fine you for this extra screw here, and how this switch is 4” too high.”
    “That goes to the people of the state we have threatened and wronged, right?”
    “No of course not: it goes to the governor’s slush fund, and/or ‘donated to charity’ on behalf of you.”
    …Opposition party charities, that will donate directly to the governor in a shakedown operation, to make sure the crime never stops.

    Not kidding, all these things, and especially the charity donations is directly true. Hey, why not code “fine” the Catholic Church and send their “donations” directly to the abortion clinic? Same thing. No? Why not the other way: we find violations on Starbucks worldwide and give their multi-million fines over all the stores directly the Proud Boys, a “voting and safety” fund. Sound good now?

    This is about every day in America, so if you own a run-down diner, hasn’t been fixed in 50 years, you see this guy and his new $45,000 15mpg State Enforcement SUV. If you’re Jimmy-John who got unemployed, going around in his 1994 pickup truck doing odd jobs in Arkansas, that guy will be on the jobsite in NO TIME, looking for all those fat stacks of cash you must be papering over all your rust holes with. What happens? Price goes up. Job goes down. Nobody comes into work. Why bother? Town is boarded up and blows away, but CRIME NEVER SLEEPS. They will never – NEVER – stop shaking down Jimmy John so they can make $40 grand as their second job while doing 10 hours work. …And Jimmy John is their NEIGHBOR, and they know his kids don’t eat. Time to call Social Services! And THEIR new car and fine State benefits can come down and “Help”. Help him into prison where he doesn’t even have bail. The kids’ll LOVE it. We’ll have this fixed up in a jiffy!

    What I used to say is “This place is like Romania” — The Town, the County, the State, the Nation – but that’s a vicious slur to Romanians. There’s no place in Romania or eastern Europe as corrupt as here, with their smooth, flashy flawless takeout, and their slick, pearl-clutching victim-game PR.

    Not just us, of course, eating in the “Brokeback Diner” while every government office looks like Apple’s Headquarters. Did you not just see multi-billionaire Elon Musk get the shakedown from Congress only yesterday. Hey, you’d better send me some money from your new acquisition or “I guess we’ll have an investigation” (using state funds to create personal and party “donations”)? How about FTX, that look like a multi-billion shakedown and theft operation by and for the nation’s wealthiest?

    Romania, Moscow, Bulgaria, can only DREAM of being able to have such levels of corruption as we have here in America. Every day, at every level. Nah, go ahead and bomb away at Chicago. It’ll do us all a favor. Hope the sea levels rise, it’ll save the earth.

    What I said this week about “what doesn’t America have”, that we’ll be fine is true, but what we don’t have is MORALITY. Anywhere. That’s the only thing, that can turn a barren rock like Japan into the world’s power and prosperity, but without can turn the wealthiest states like the Congo — or the United States — into pure ruin you would think had been hit by a nuclear bomb. …The environs of Detroit.

    https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2018/09/918/516/Hantz1-1.jpg?ve=1&tl=1DetroitPic

    Worse, it’s the hardest of anything to fix. And has been engineered on us for 100 years. Such that now, a single step away from it is considered being Hitler.

    No bomb hit this place. That’s just corruption.

    Decay in Detroit: Feral House Photos by James Griffioen


    https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/detroit/dead-bodies-wild-dogs-squatters-in-government-owned-detroit-houses/69-576508072
    Detroit, yes, but all America outside of the 12 Blessed Cities, and mostly inside them too. Lookin’ at you, D.C., run directly by Congress and the murder capital of the world.

    It’s the best, most thorough, most certain, least-repairable bomb there is. Why use anything else?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQPsKvG6WMI Yuri Bezmenov

    “Psychological warfare…To change the perception of reality to such an extent that despite an abundance of information, no one is able to come to a sensible conclusion, in the interests of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country.”

    If you want to stop this, you’re Hitler. If you want to unite the country, you’re Hitler. If you want to make America Great, as it was before this outside psychological operation started mind-bombing the nation, you’re Hitler. In fact, if you want anything BUT a complete lack of agreement, sensible conclusions, and anything that might possible work together to defend yourself, your family, your children, your community or your country, you’re Hitler.

    Worked like a charm, so why not? P.S. The Soviet Union isn’t the only one who knows how to do this or has a motive. 2) Yuri’s Soviet Union hasn’t existed in a lifetime. So who’s running the Op?

    “Bankman-Fried has boasted of meeting policymakers in Washington “every two or three weeks for the last year.”

    Corruption. FTX — WEF partner and Big Pharma-donor — is going to speak on how to make money from the rubes next to Janet Yellen and Zelensky, along with Mark Zuckerberg, Mayor Eric Adams, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Vice President Mike Pence at the $3,000/seat Accenture event next week. Awkward timing? Will they even cancel? Why bother?

    Like I said, probably in line as the next DNC chairman.

    “F**k regulators,” [SBF] said in the interview, adding: “They make everything worse. They don’t protect customers at all.”

    You mean like when they CREATE the scam, FUND it, green light it, direct it, then sweep the money from fines into their personal and political donors’ accounts, even being so low as to use charities? Like that? That kind of “everything worse”?

    Yes, the thing with Regulation and “Helping” I’m on about all the time is corruption. …Although even non-corrupt laws are pointless, because if you’re not corrupt, no one needs the law in the first place. So then 1) the people call for “a law”. 2) the already-corrupt people RUNNING the law, then say “Oh goodie!!! A new tool to use corruptly!” And 3) Never fix, solve, or regulate the original problem 4) steal more from honest people 5) use the money to pass more laws and get more tools and 6) have the people – who are the slowest learners in the universe – beg for more “Help” and “Tools”. i.e. more “Corruption”.

    You don’t solve corruption with rules. You actually don’t need any written rules to not be corrupt. Zero. And many nations have for a thousand years. All you need is to arrest and remove the criminals. And replace them with non-corrupt people of good intent. But as above, this is the hardest of all things, and far harder in a nation lacking any.

    Anyway, what did “The Regulators” do for FTX while watching it from day 1, hand in glove, with their own kids on the board, involved?

    The Regulators “helped” in Savings and Loan, to make sure the criminals wouldn’t go to jail and be able to do it again a few years later. They “helped” Bernie Madoff run his scam for 20 years, with only one bank, no trades, no accountant, where every action was authorized directly by the Chase Board of Directors, protecting him from the outside non-regulators screaming about it. They “helped” cover up 100,000 felonies in MERS, the million or billion in tax-stamp revenue stolen from towns, the “helping” of keeping home prices levitated so Millennials would “Own nothing”, make ten-hundreds of fraudulent foreclosures on innocent families, then when it blew up, “Helped” themselves to $23 Trillion dollars. The home prices didn’t drop because regulators “helped” High-Frequency-Traders make trillions of fake stock trades that levitated prices and scalped all Americans in the billions, while regulators helped them do this when they didn’t own the stock, naked shorted, and ran honest companies like “ToysRUs” out of business, and Blackberry, Overstock, into financial hardship? How are they trading without even the stock? Need I go on with “regulators” and “Helping”?

    Or as Mark Baum said in The Big Short:
    “Paulsson and Bernanke just left the White House. There’s going to be a bail-out.
    They knew. Cash would have stopped coming out the ATM, they had to back-stop this
    they knew the tax-payers would bail them out, they weren’t stupid, they just didn’t care! ” ’cause they’re fucking crooks!”

    Regulation? Laws? All I hear is “Oh goodie! Now I have new tools to steal from you more!” For the love of God, stop giving them more power.

    The more laws and restrictions there are, The poorer people become.” –Tao te Ching. That is an oooooold book. After Lao Tzu wrote it, he fell off his dinosaur. Hey, if laws help so much then how do they make all people poorer? For 3,000 years in a row?

    “Ukraine Has Lost 40% of Energy System as Kyiv Sees First Snow (ZH)”

    Look at it this way: they gave you almost a year to get your act together and knock it off. That could have been done without losing 4 provinces. Yet here we are. Biden’s genocide is nearly complete.

    ” Former Trump Advisor: Biden Admin Has No End Goal for Ukraine War (JTN)”

    No, they do. It’s just they can’t say it because it’s slavic genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the complete nuclear attack and destruction of Russia to the Pacific. Just like WWI an WWII. It’s also not like they DIDN’T say that: it’s been in all their official documents and war plans since 1940. It’s kinda hard to miss. But reporters and Americans are completely illiterate, I guess. The Government would never do that! Their job is to HELP! Help themselves.

    reports indicate [oil] will be set at around $60 per barrel.”

    Signaling. Signaling so hard!!! Meanwhile, back in reality, they are wildly overpaying for thousands more tonnes of CO2 to be released as the oil goes to Vladivostok, Beijing, then back to Rotterdam. “We paid more, AND released more carbon! Go us!!!” Greenest Green. The purest peace. Yes: weaponized empathy, but like other Cons, it only works if the sucker WANTS it. The mark has to participate in the lie. Btw, if you price-fix, the immediate result is no supply.

    “In the Best tradition of the Department of Justice” – Jack Smith.

    Omg, no. You mean the DoJ that kept 100,000 dossiers on un-Americans, before, during, and after Vietnam, and worked tirelessly or perhaps did in fact kill Martin Luther King? You mean that tradition? “Helping”! When have we ever done wrong?

    ““digital health certificate” which shows whether a person has been “vaccinated or tested properly

    And remember, that’s now booster 5 — they work so well 4 is not enough — and with a PCR test that has proven, and admitted, never worked. This law was written by men who were vaccinated 5 times and got Covid. Safety first! But if I didn’t take it, how would we all know you’d just get Covid anyway?

    ““..many people misunderstood the meaning of “peak oil” and saw it as equivalent to “running out” of oil…”

    There’s a reason for their misunderstanding, Ugo: don’t you have a picture of “Seneca’s Curve” at the top of your website? That “Poof, it’s gone” curve? And it’s a serious business indeed we can’t seem to make people take seriously, probably because of our clown leaders, clown scientists, and clown ecologists. Could say something simple like “Ever notice how the more you buy, the more you use the more UN-happy you become?” Now Russia and UAE for example just signed 50 YEAR energy deals. With VERY expensive pipelines. So they’re just lying about not having any energy or what?

    But I tell you, although we have options now, options everyone is denying to sell “There Is No Alternative” front-pocket grift, after that 50 years I’d be surprised if we would have oil even for plastics and mining, and the price of fertilizer will be very high.

    “Hillary”, brazen liar, crooked lawyer, too corrupt for Watergate, opened a slave market, and promised to start WWIII while gleefully cheering “We Came, We Saw, He Died! Te-he”. These are the people choosing the new Special Counsel on “Ethics”.

    Well I for one say let’s give this government infinite power with infinite laws. Definitely things will get much better then. …I mean if laws and voting work and all.

    #121383
    zerosum
    Participant

    “Broken windows”/money making machines

    1. FTX is a $11 billion, “heaven made on earth”, for lawyers and accountants.
    2. The Biden investigation is icing on the cake.
    3. War is for the depletion/destruction of outdated war machine inventory/supplies
    4. Peace is for rebuilding/replacing old war machine with the latest intelligent/remote operated/unmanned systems.
    5. COVID-19 immunization
    6. Drug War
    ———
    Eventually, All Life Activity has an impact on moderating/stabilizing/feedback on the variation of weather on earth.
    ———
    it’s snowing before the arrival of winter
    ————–
    Human body has evolved into/is a bag/environment/host of microbes communicating/coordination/cooperating to survive/live
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_microbiota
    In the human, the gut is the main location of human microbiota.[5] The gut microbiota has broad impacts, including effects on colonization, resistance to pathogens, maintaining the intestinal epithelium, metabolizing dietary and pharmaceutical compounds, controlling immune function, and even behavior through the gut–brain axis.

    The microbial composition of the gut microbiota varies across regions of the digestive tract. The colon contains the highest microbial density recorded in any habitat on Earth, representing between 300 and 1000 different species.[6]
    ———

    #121384
    EoinW
    Participant

    The revealing thing in this isn’t that Ukraine/Poland tried to lie NATO into a shooting war with Russia, it’s America’s reaction to it. A sane response! This explains much going on underneath the surface.

    NATO may push to the limit of escalation but – except for Brits, Poles & American neo-cons, who’ve gone totally off the rails(the neo-cons were never on them – it does not want WW3 with Russia. It does want endless war between Russia & Ukraine because too many important people are making millions from that war.

    There are a few sane heads at the Pentagon. We knew this already. It was made clear January 2020 when Iran publicly bombed a US base and America backed down. If they wouldn’t fight the Iranians, after a direct attack on Americans, they certainly won’t choose to fight the Russians.

    If Martin Armstrong’s compute is correct, they will stumble into a real war in early 2023. With the Brits, Poles, Ukrainians & all the neo-cons in the West(the WEF controls every western government) wanting war so badly, NATO is playing a risky game.

    The US military really is a shadow of its former self. It has been turned into a money laundromat, including all the corruption that goes with it. One needs to just sit down and compare Russian arsenals to NATO’s. There’s no comparison!

    NATO gets its head handed to itself on a platter if it takes on the Russians. Perhaps this is the spark which gives the WEF the collapse of the West they want in order to Build Back Better.

    #121385
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    There is a fatal flaw in the strategy of “divide and conquer” that our enemy is so fond of, and that flaw gets them every time.

    The flaw is this: The shattered fragments eventually learn that although there are tantalizingly effective benefits to the Power of the Collective, survival ultimately depends upon the strength of each of them as individuals and their PERSONAL willingness to go the distance (to die, or even to kill if necessary) in defense of what they hold dear.

    Having learned that lesson through loss and adversity, when those individuals eventually turn their might against the “Power of the Collective” that illusory edifice of lies turns to ash and is wept away by the winds of time.

    And what is it that eventually succeeds in binding these heretofore isolated individuals into a cohesive whole that is not itself a tyrannical collective of corrupted power?

    It is the sense of nation or tribe. It is the gut level, unfakeable knowledge that one is a part of a single people bound by ties of common purpose, values, interests and love. Yes, I said it out loud. It is love. It is that indescribably noble and redeeming impulse at the core of your being that places your loved one above your self. It is the willingness to provide, to suffer, to die, or even to kill so that one’s loved one can survive and succeed.

    So, is there a nation called America? I think that there is, but it is a very very young nation and has not yet been tested, until now. Is our sense of being one people strong enough to withstand the grave injury of having been conquered by truly evil tyrants? Can we evict those scum, restore our country as a respectable sovereign country, and share the world with other true nations ?

    We shall see.

    #121386
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Bosco: “It’s like running out of breath: there’s still ample oxygen in the air but your lungs’ ability to extract that oxygen, and use it to sustain the level of exertion that requires so much oxygen, is no longer sufficient to sustain that level of exertion.”

    That’s really well stated. Two thumbs up. 🙂

    #121387
    kultsommer
    Participant

    The names!
    Starting with Bankman. Just wow!
    Ending in what could have been: Jack Smith, Jim Trusty and Joe Sixpack walked into the bar…..

    #121388
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ D Benton Smith

    Why did Trudeau and co panic? Lost control. You said it.
    “It is the sense of nation or tribe. It is the gut level, unfakeable knowledge that one is a part of a single people bound by ties of common purpose, values, interests and love. Yes, I said it out loud. It is love. “

    https://publicorderemergencycommission.ca/public-hearings/

    #121389
    chooch
    Participant

    In his twitter photo, Elon Musk appears to be wearing what kinda looks like a Tony Stark/Iron Man get up. But on further investigation, the custom he is wearing is called the Devil’s Champion, the red leather armor features several Baphomet heads with inverted crosses.

    emusk

    #121390
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    “The strike has resulted in the neutralisation of the production capacities for nuclear weaponry.”

    The last threat by Zelensky before the Russians invaded was that Ukraine would create nuclear weapons. This was not an idle threat as they had the means of production. I believe that this finally prompted Russia to take action.

    #121391
    The Markster
    Participant

    Batiushka knows what time it is, and Kunstler has done great research on the incestuous imperial mandarins that run this clown show, but my guess is that his prediction of Justice #743 will fall flat just like always. If they got away with Russiagate, two fake impeachments and the 2020 steal, it’s unlikely they will be stopped anytime soon. The zombie cheering squad is still too large.

    As a USAnian who went to high school for a bit in Canada, one thing I learned is that referring to the USA as “America” is arrogant and snickered at around the world, despite the impression one might get from the garbage on TV. Part of being a civilized Zone B country after the empire falls will hopefully involve a change in language. If good manners and humility might help us rejoin civilized humanity, this might be a good place to start.

    With an added bonus being less snickering from our closest neighbors over here in the backwaters. ☮️

    #121392
    oldandtired
    Participant

    @phoenixvoice
    Sounds like your son might be in someone’s crosshairs at school. Read Bureaucratic Insanity if you haven’t. Too many suspensions for “behavior”. Sounds like he is smart enough. Just not interested in his required tasks. Have him watch Mr, Carlson’s Lab on Youtube-with you. See if that piques his interest. If so, buy him a soldering iron and buy him an electronic kit to make. Cars, too. Mechanics Special. He is old enough.

    Watch Dave Casler with him on Youtube. See if that resonates with him. You are you, and he is who he is. Sounds like he is bored.

    I did not like school. I did not like college. Subjects not interesting (college prep, so no Vocational Education for me!)

    I found something I liked to do. Bootstrapped myself. First year in my own business, I paid more in Federal Income Tax than my father had ever grossed working as an Educational Administrator. (BA, MA- Principal/Superintendent) best time of my life. Enjoyed the work- hands and brain.

    Give your boy exposure to all of these things. More arrows in his quiver.

    My 2 cents. You sound like a great parent. You must die a little every time something like you mentioned happens to your child. I know I did.

    #121393
    Noirette
    Participant

    Blinken and Nuland are all from the chosen ones camp I think, Nuland for sure.

    Redneck wrote.

    When Blinken was appointed I was curious as to his background and CV.

    Background. His maternal grandparents were Hungarian Jews.

    His paternal great-grandfather, Meir Blinkin, was born in Perjaslav (now in Ukraine.) He moved to the US in 1904 aged 25. He was a famous author, very ‘innovative even scandalous.. He also wrote for Zionist and Socialist papers (common alliance at the time.)

    In 1965, the literary critic Dovid Shub noted that Meir Blinken was the first Yiddish writer in America to write about sex.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meir_Blinken

    A Brief Blinken Family History: From Pereiaslav to DC and Back

    (Blinkin – Blinken same name, changed at some point.)

    His paternal grandfather, Maurice / Moritz Blinken, born in Kiev, was a backer of Israel.

    https://ukrainianjewishencounter.org/en/yiddish-and-the-ukrainian-jewish-roots-of-the-new-u-s-secretary-of-state/

    His parents are Vera and Donald, here a blurb from the Open Society Archives.

    https://www.osaarchivum.org/about-us/vera-and-donald-blinken

    > All from wiki-msm-etc. Note, Meir moved to the US in 1904, and Tony’s grandfather was born in Kiev? .. ?

    see also, fron 2020.

    https://bit.ly/3VaZ385

    #121394
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    ‘Earth can regulate its own temperature’

    Yes, obviously.

    Life has existed for around 3.5 billion years – it is not a fragile system. There has to be feedback loops to ensure its continuity.

    For billions of years it was mainly cyanobacteria which created stromatolites and a poisonous [to them] waste gas of oxygen. For 500 million years this oxygen was consumed by most of the Earth’s iron turning to rust, but eventually it built up in the atmosphere.

    Then came multicellular creatures – the Cambrian explosion [when CO2 was fourteen times more than today]. Life never looked back although almost all species that ever existed are now extinct [99%]. Extinction is just an opportunity for more successful species.

    Reconstructions of global temperature over billions of years shows there is a definite upper limit, several degrees warmer than today. This is most likely down to water vapour, especially in the form of clouds. Higher temperatures means more clouds which increases the Earth’s albedo, reflecting more sunlight back into space and keeping the Earth cooler.

    We have a reference point – the Moon, where surface temperatures range from 100C to -150C, but Earth is built to keep temperatures in a much more tolerable range.

    #121395
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Ugo Bardi’s description of Colin and the ASPO has the usual tropes:

    “[in 2000] an attempt to alert governments and everyone about the dangers ahead. Rethinking about that story, today, it is amazing how Colin succeeded, alone and only with his own resources, in creating an organization that arrived to have some effect on the global debate. High-rank politicians heard the message…”

    “In both cases, a group of intellectuals tried to alert the world rulers about the finiteness of the material resources on which the economy was based, and that something had to be done to avoid the “overconsumption trap” that would necessarily lead to a crash. In both cases, the message was rejected and demonized, then ignored.”

    But I’d like to try an alternate narrative: one where the “veil was being lifted, that we could see what was behind the propaganda curtain,”

    In 1970, the Club of Rome set the tone, paid for and relentlessly publicized for decades by the highest powers. Before 2000, Colin knew what everyone knew: Exxon, BP, the CIA, Pentagon planners, it was public data. Oil was running out, but unlike his chart that stops in 2000, ONLY IN THE WEST. (Note Former Soviet Union, dropping in 1990, no line to 2020) That’s not untrue. Another major oil man – I forget who – yelled a book about Saudi and Gawar being dead, this is also true. End of US$ and US power, US military.

    But their, his diagnosis, is that the political leaders, CIA, Exxon, didn’t listen. But on the contrary, they did. They listened in the highest, most serious, most long-term, critical, dangerous planning ever. He just said in the next sentence he saw the Twin Towers in 2001. Conveniently AFTER the deep recession from the ‘99 Nasdaq collapse. Caused itself by oil, by numeric representations outrunning real resources? We’ll never know.

    What we DO know is a day later, Bush started a 100-year oil war, worldwide. General Clark has the Youtube video on the 5 nations they were toppling that had nothing to do with it. “Why are they doing this?” he asks. “They don’t know.” C’mon: they are GENERALS. They DO know. They are taking over the Middle East in the later Arab Spring, to capture all the oil in the Middle East, stated in our wide-spread Americanism “How did OUR oil get under THEIR sand?”

    Owning this oil, plus all our farmland, would bring to heel that OTHER problem, a rising China, and set up an immediate attack on Iran. With China out and Iran’s oil captured, Russia would be isolated and conquered next. They listened to Colin all too well: but they are religious, mass-murdering psychopaths and used it as moral justification to do what they know and like best: to murder people and steal things.

    That war continues on today, with battles in Libya, Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Somalia, and Venezuela. These are all oil producers, oil reserves, pipeline routes, food producers, or all of the above. China remains at risk.

    But again, Two things:

    1) They DID listen. As far back as the Club of Rome they’ve been planning this. It’s just a world war of planetary domination.
    2) There’s still lots of oil, but it’s largely in countries that the West hasn’t yet conquered and dominated. So his curves are wrong too.

    Question is: will we support the wars and burn all the oil in an failed attempt to conquer it? Or will we give the nations that still own it their far due, fair price, and import it?

    Too late: we’ve already answered both questions with our blood in Ukraine. War that wastes, with the Pentagon the largest user on earth, supported with ever-increasing budgets and bombs.

    That’s why they can’t cut back on oil. They can’t cut back on spending. That economy is what supports the 100 year oil war, and we can’t de-tax, de-industrialize and de-control the economy while that’s the basis of the Pan-Western Military Complex and military production. They can’t not do this because if they admit the war, they immediately cannot import free goods and raw commodities with printed money. That will deplete our own war materials and options here at home. SO they must also lie. To Colin, Peak Oil people and the public. If they think what they’re doing is so right and necessary, then why do they have to lie about it? Ah, see: they don’t.

    What the people see is, 1) Nothing ever happens, so their economizing only hurts themselves while profiting the reckless, and 2) any attempt to actually economize and ecologize is rigorously, violently opposed by every level of law, government, and industry and they’ve been attacking them tirelessly since the first hippies went back to the land in 1970. But Ugo expects them to buck both the economy AND the government to reduce their standard of living so China can burn more coal. Ain’t happening. But this is WHY it’s not happening, not because we down here are immoral, uncaring parasites. To the contrary, we’re the only ones who DO care. I don’t see politicians, industry, lawyers, or universities care: every day they use more and plan more airline conferences, build more condos, and trash everyone in Iowa and Wyoming who doesn’t follow their lead.

    So no: you’re not going to get our support. For your stupid, useless 100 year war. When there’s 50 years of oil. And your “solution” after blowing the last 50 years and making us work like rented mules is for us to give you MORE money and power, in fact Carbon Credit lockdown, UNLIMITED, PERMANENT money and power some may call “Tyrannical”. Nope.

    But they’re all happy to use less. Lake Camp, Cottagecore, Tiny House chicken farmers are the hottest thing on the internet and have been for decades. Nobody wants to live in your cities. Nobody wants to live in your pods. They all moved out. Your VR is the biggest failure in the history of silicon. They’re not eating the bugs, they’re eating the chickens that eat the bugs, and dreaming of raising cows and cooking the finest foods, a Food Channel sector so large it may be half of “television” by now.

    So they’re not using less. They’re using better and trying to freely produce – anything – green, against all unified block of opposition, raining down on them worldwide.

    But that’s what happened with Colin, Peak Oil, governments, and the People. The governments went to a war planned these 40 years. The people didn’t, so the government went to war against them too. And here we are, burning all the oil in the war and cutting ourselves off instead of downsizing like everybody wants to.

    Nobody wants this desperate, unhappy, frenetic, chaotic life. Nobody wants to drive 2 hours each way to work 65 hours while others sit on the couch in collapsing apartments. So if nobody wants it, why is it happening? Just stop.

    #121396
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Bosco: “It’s like running out of breath:”

    Luongo just used a metaphor I didn’t understand at first but suits the situation very well. In an airplane it’s called Running out of altitude.

    At too high an altitude, you run out of lift under the wings. (and air for your engine). To fix this, you increase speed and point upwards, going higher so you don’t stall. However, going higher, faster obviously makes everything worse. Eventually you run out of ability and stall, perhaps the engine goes out and crash. What is this?

    The U.S. economy (and Australian and Canadian real Estate) have “fixed” the crash by raising stock and home prices. But now they have risen too high. When they can go no higher, the economic engine stalls, and the nations likewise plummet out of control and crash. As long as they can keep prices higher, print faster, the illusion is maintained, but this is really just painting yourself into a definite failure.

    Which they have. And the airspeed now has. Biden $30B a MONTH now. After $50B in the whole year. They’ve run out of breath and now they’re out of time.

    #121397
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Yes, they are planning next pandemic, … G20 nation that is. Dr. John Campbell:

    F.S.

    #121398
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    The Peak Oil narrative delivered by Colin Campbell, ASPO members and others was NEVER about ‘running out of oil’. And that point was repeatedly emphasised at the time ASPO was most active.

    Yet here we are, two decades later and still the phrase ‘running out of oil’ is parroted over and over again.

    The term Peak Oil always referred to the time period over which the rate of global extraction of conventional oil reached a maximum and then went into decline. That period of maximum extraction rate occurred over the period 2005 to 2009.

    The significance highlighted by ASPO was that all industrial nations are totally dependent on the consumption of oil to maintain economic activity. It therefore followed that a reduction in the quantity of oil available for use would result in a decline in economic activity. And a decline in economic activity would result in an implosion of the bankers’ Ponzi scheme.

    What was not foreseen by oil geologists like Colin Campbell in the early 2000s was the jigging of interest rates down to zero (or below zero in some countries) by central banks and the flooding of the financial system with ‘free money’ that could be siphoned into activities with extremely poor EROEI (energy return on energy invested) such as extraction of oil from ‘tar sands’ and fracking etc.

    The effect of ‘tar sands’ extraction and fracking was to prolong the life of the consumer society by approximately one decade, whilst at the same time increasing local pollution levels enormously and increasing the atmospheric carbon dioxide burden significantly.

    But the controllers and operators of the various Ponzi schemes that characterise western finance have no regard whatsoever for the effects of local pollution or the increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide burden, other than as opportunities for yet more ‘disaster capitalism’.
    :
    And NATOstan governments are purely agents of the international money-lenders, so they fully endorse the sacrificing of the environment and the sacrificing of the future to protect and promote the short-term interests of the money-lenders.

    So, when the [primarily US] short-lived fracking boom started to unravel over 2018-2019 and the repo market began to unravel in September 2018, the totally corrupt governments of NATOstan nations had to come up with some kind of scheme to conceal the drop in available liquid fuel energy -particularly the drop in oil energy accessible to NATOstan nations- and came up with the Covid scam.

    As we all know, the death rate from the original covid strain was very low, so it was necessary to issue counterproductive treatment protocols which included ramming dangerous amounts of oxygen into stressed pulmonary systems and banning the use of effective antivirals: that ensured plenty of people died in order to provide a pretext for lockdowns that would reduce the demand for fuel and other oil products.

    There is always the matter of reserves, and the reserves of low-quality, hard-to-extract oil deposits are absolutely staggering. The theoretical reserves are sufficient to last for many decades. However, the problem is extracting useable hydrocarbons from them at a fast enough rate.

    That is why Britian started to run into trouble in the early part of the twentieth century; after approximately 200 years of increasing extraction ate for coal, the extraction rate peaked; hence peak coal for Britain was in 1913.

    Jevons highlighted the fallacy that improved efficiency would reduce the consumption of coal; it didn’t. Increased efficiency in the extraction and utilisation of coal increased the demand: the Jevons Paradox. That was 1865.

    The decision to switch from coal to oil to power Britain’s navy was not because Britain was running out of cola but because oil (diesel) was so much easier to handle. However, since Britan had very little domestic oil available -the stuff seeping out of Dorset cliffs really wasn’t up to the job- that decision did necessitate Britian stealing oil from the nearest accessible oilfields, which happened to be in Basra, at the time controlled by Turkey. So the Turks had to be kicked out of Mesopotamia and the region converted into a pseudo-colony.

    Hence WW1. And hence the North African campaigns of WW2. And hence the Gulf War. And hence ‘the weapons of mass destruction available for launch at a moment’s notice that could fall on Europe within 45 minutes’ blah, blah, blah, as delivered by Tony B Liar.

    But wait, there’s more.

    Where do you go when the oilfields in the ‘pond’ to the east have been severely depleted (peak UK North Sea oil extraction was around 2001)?

    Go further east, of course, to the place that has not been fully exploited yet.

    How do we get there?

    Via Ukraine, of course!

    Might even manage to get a bit of fracking done on the way eastwards, via Biden Incorporated, specialists in looting and polluting and money-laundering.

    The Russian-speaking people occupying the land corridor may not be keen on the idea, but we can exterminate them or drive them out on the way through to the Russian oilfields.

    #121399
    John Day
    Participant

    Redneck wrote:
    “You are of course only talking about Western oligarchs, not Russian or Chinese or Iranian oligarchs , correct?
    How will the destruction of Western oligarchs produce a fairer system ? Do you honestly believe that a world where Russian , China , Iran and India are the hegemons that the world will be fairer?”

    No, I meant in the broadest possible terms, hence at least part of the conceptual difficulty.
    I do not intend to pick sides, but some back and forth from time to time in any conflict might end up creating better conditions for third-parties, non-combatants, such as ourselves.

    In ancient days a general laying siege might free all debtors and slaves within a city. They would then have to consider their best course more carefully. Lincoln did that with southern slaves, but not northern slaves.
    How does one get to a fairer and less parasitic world, not the absolute, but a step in the right direction?
    How can it happen? What are the mechanisms? I do not see it as futile. Do you?
    If it is futile, one is absolved of responsibility.
    I feel that I am responsible to do my best with what I have, which is a pretty good mind, life-experience and a bit of self-evaluation capability. I am moderately good at fairly wide ranging analysis, and better than most at communication via English language.
    You seem to have a similar set of talents.
    How do you feel?

    #121400
    The Black
    Participant

    The aviator’s phrase for Dr. D’s (Luongo’s?) metaphor is the “Coffin Corner”.

    #121401
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    D Benton: “Is our sense of being one people strong enough to withstand the grave injury of having been conquered by truly evil tyrants?”

    Yes, it is. Maybe not in my lifetime since I’m wallowing around in “old age” at this point, but I have faith in the American (apparently not PC) people. We put up with a lot, but when the chips are down, we fight. And yes, the fighters are still amongst us. They just aren’t wasting time on YouTwitFace, and are avoiding physical fighting unless it becomes necessary. I think that’s ingrained in Americans. As I’ve pointed out before, if American’s weren’t by and large peaceful people, 10s of thousands of citizens would be dead each year considering the number of firearms in this country. Why *no one* can acknowledge this simple fact is beyond me (except Dr D who has pointed this out many times).

    The Markster: “As a USAnian who went to high school for a bit in Canada, one thing I learned is that referring to the USA as “America” is arrogant and snickered at around the world …”

    Does this snickering also apply to South Africans? Just asking since … how is it that South Africa claims the entire continent in its name?

    It seems people can easily identify the differences between the action of [most] countries’ political leaders and the sentiments of its citizens … but somehow Americans get lumped into the actions of our political leaders.

    We aren’t them.

    #121402
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘Earth can regulate its own temperature’

    Yes, and did a wonderful job over a period of more than 600 million years, until it spawned humans smart enough to work out how to extract the carbon that the Earth had sequestered over hundreds of millions of years and convert it into carbon dioxide and other pollutants so quickly those pollutants completely overwhelmed the natural systems

    First these smart apes burned so much high-sulphur coal so inefficiently and put so much crap into the atmosphere they cause the air to be so polluted people died by the hundred (London 1951) and the Black Forest began to die, whilst the lakes in Eastern Europe become too acidic to support life (SO2 pollution, 1960s/1970s).

    Also, there was severe Global Dimming, i.e. insufficient heat reaching the surface and a gradual drop in temperature that resulted from so much crap being discharged into the atmosphere.

    Not being keen on dead forest and dead lakes -a really bad look- the smart apes decided to clean up the air by installing exhaust gas scrubbers.

    That exhaust gas scrubber fixed to air problem to some extent but then created a river pollution problem: fish dying because the water was so polluted.

    So then the smart apes tackled the water pollution problem, firstly by installing acid-neutralising systems and secondly by installing sedimentation ponds.

    But all this extra pollution control in developed nations was costing resources, energy and money, and required well trained managers and technicians; far better for the local environment to shift all the filthy factories to Asia and let the Asians have polluted air and polluted rivers: added bonus, we can pay them 10% of what we pay domestic workers and still get the same kinds of products. Just have to print more money via central banks to pay for it all. The bean counters agreed.

    Of course, the insidious invisible pollution continued, and the next predicament generated by industrialism that the smart apes were so keen on was severe depletion of ozone by ODS.

    “Oops, we’ll all be dead by 2010 if we don’t fix this cock-up!”

    “Shit. That was close! ODS severely reduced and the ozone layer is slowly recovering.”

    But the other major insidious invisible pollutants -CO2 and CH4- cannot be tackled without bring the whole house of cards system to a rapid collapse. Therefore, all the controllers can offer is a multitude of scams such as ‘carbon trading’, ‘alternative energy’, ‘electric cars’ blah, blah, blah.

    Just think, H2S will kill you but you will lose consciousness quite quickly and suffer a painless death.

    SO2 will kill you and it will be an awful choking death.

    NO2 will kill you and it will also be an awful choking death.

    Just think, atmospheric CO2 is now more 140 ppm above where the Earth ‘intended it to be’ at his point of time and is increasing at around 2.5 ppm per annum.

    How long we have before this major disruption to ‘Earth can regulate its own temperature’ utterly wrecks current living arrangements of most people is debatable, but I doubt it is more than ten years for the entire population. For an awful lot of people, it already has…

    Daily CO2

    Nov. 18, 2022 = 417.55 ppm

    Nov. 18, 2021 = 414.79 ppm

    #121403
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    AFKTT: ” Earth … spawned humans smart enough to work out how to extract the carbon that the Earth had sequestered over hundreds of millions of years and convert it into carbon dioxide and other pollutants so quickly those pollutants completely overwhelmed the natural systems ..”

    How do you know that wasn’t on purpose?

    Humans need to get over themselves. The earth has been here for eons (we pretend we’re able to analyze that time frame using our inferior human chronological measuring tools) and will continue after we’re gone.

    And?

    #121404
    John Day
    Participant

    @Dr.D again, about simple mathematical description of income distributions, due to hierarchy.
    https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/fix_2021_redistributing.pdf

    #121405
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    I wasn’t much of a Palestrina fan before now. Probably because he was presented as one of the Officially Great composers of that genre.

    Wonderfully layered. Lots of space in the music for the dust motes in the cathedral to sun dance in.

    #121406
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Two thumbs up. 🙂”

    That’s all? Just two? Oh, wait. I forgot. I’m on Terra. I still forget sometimes that I’m no longer on Mizar Five, where five thumbs and no fingers is the rule of, er, thumb. 😉

    #121407
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    The problem with humans getting over themselves is that our current trajectory toward achieving this end involves massive morbidity and attendant suffering. Just like Putin isn’t interested in a world without humans, humans, being a species with abundant Will to Power, aren’t all that interested in a world without homo sapiens — especially their personal sapient homo, their individual selves.

    Gaia’s a big girl and can take care of herself, push come to shove, but that doesn’t necessarily cause Gaia joy.

    I like it when Big Mama is happy, cuz when Big Mama is unhappy, everyone is unhappy.

    Naughty Children

    #121408
    The Markster
    Participant

    @upstateNYer

    South Africa and Africa are two different places and two different names. One is a country, and the other is a continent.

    I was discussing the difference between identifying two continents versus a single country in written and spoken English. But it’s no skin off my back if you want to keep calling the USA “America” like you did in your comment. You will have many tens of millions more people in the USA who agree with your approach than I do with mine.

    And all things considered, I kinda like it that way.

    #121409
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    upstateNYer

    Surely the real point is that NATOstan nations are controlled by rapacious psychopaths who do not represent the majority of people and who cheat and lie and steal and murder all the time, and who will kill off everyone and everything (including themselves in the end) in their utter determination to keep terminally destructive Ponzi schemes going for just a little longer.

    Anyway, that’s how I see it.

    I take it you are far from one of the focal points of the accelerating meltdown, Lake Mead, which is currently 22 feet below the level of this time last year (a previous record low) and falling much faster than this time last year.

    Whereas we can be absolutely certain atmospheric CO2 will be significantly higher next year, and we can be absolutely certain the amount of oil available will be less next year, we cannot be certain Lake Mead will continue to fall. It just very much looks that way.

    #121410
    Bill7
    Participant

    I agree that that Palestrina Mass is beautifully layered. The Oxford Camerata develop a lovely hush in the Sanctus
    on their 1991 recording. I haven’t found a recording I like better than that one, and hearing too many in a row seems deadening, so that’s enough of it for now.

    Next will be Ockeghem’s Requiem (or Missa Pro Defunctis). Fitting for these times-

    #121411
    Redneck
    Participant

    “How does one get to a fairer and less parasitic world, not the absolute, but a step in the right direction?
    How can it happen? What are the mechanisms? I do not see it as futile. Do you?”
    Most likely it is futile. All you can do is your life honestly , don’t be an arsehole is the golden rule.
    Nothing we say here or anywhere will change the course of things in my view. Talking won’t change a thing . Action will but the majority are contented with the situation or deluded by the propaganda. Even if large masses of folk were to hit the streets , the globalists have the control over everything, there is no political solution to this.
    For example will the Iranians be able to overthrow the Mullahs? Not likely. If they do who will take control? Another Shah? .
    I am an interested observer only.
    I did walk in the anti-covid demonstrations here but we were a tiny , tiny minority.
    My main gripe is the wide spread belief that the collapse of the West is going to improve the situation for us and the world, that the Russian/China NWO is some how going to be more benevolent than the present one.
    As I said , take a look at the countries that are involved , the major ones , China and Iran for example. They are not starting wars all over but only because they don’t have the capability right now. Do you seriously think that Iran will not try to take out Israel if the US collapses?
    (Not that would be a bad thing.)
    That is what they are waiting for. Do you think China is not going to completely dominate all of the world after the US is done?
    Here in Australia we have already had a taste of China’s nastiness. They stopped our imports , sanctioned us , threatened us with a nuclear strike , said we were just a peice of gum on the sole of China’s shoe , they have their intel agencies here operating in our Universities and streets, have our politicians bribed etc. China is Russia’s closest ally and will be the big boss in Russia’s NWO. Putin is a fool if he thinks that Russia is going to be in charge .
    So which country would I embrace given the choice between China/Russia and the US? Which is more malevolent to myself? Do you think I should sacrifice myself because our cabal of elected leaders are arseholes?
    If you think I would embrace China/Russia instead of the US because it would improve the world even though it would enslave me more than ever , you are dreaming.
    If you want to do that , move to Russia or China , I mean that seriously , go fight against the West , actually join the other side if your convictions are that strong.
    But we just talk.
    All the folk here who wish to see that , are victims of the Russia/China propaganda machine in my view.
    They are Childishly naive about the world.
    However having said that he China model is the future model for the world and we are powerless to stop it .Russiaa , Iran , all the Brics are on board with it. Putin just signed onto the G 20 Gates and WHO global initiative. The entire G20 did . The struggle that is going on is not for a multipolar word it is for world domination , the same old same old. Russia/China want to replace the US with themselves , I have no doubt about that.
    Technology has completely changed the game. People will become increasingly powerless as the tech gets more and more control over them.

    NOIRETTE
    “Background. His maternal grandparents were Hungarian Jews.”

    Well , what a surprise. You spoke up!
    The US has been the proxy of Jews since WW1 at least. They made their move with the takeover of the FED just before the war. When you control the money you control everything.
    WW 2 was a war between International Jewry and Germany. The Jews won and that was the end of any chance for the West to take a more benevolent direction . The entire Western global banking , media and politics has been harnessed for them to reestablish themselves and take revenge on any one they choose , the muslims in the Middle East being the first big target just as was written in the Oden white paper adopted by PENAC.
    That second Pearl Harbour , son of a bitch !
    They siphon of billions and have state funded health care ,paid for not by the state of Israel but by Us taxpayers!
    Look what happened to Jeremy Corbet the UK Labor leader.

    Here they are again parasitising the West to settle old scores in Eastern Europe. The only bit of Lira’s analysis that was correct was his analysis of Nuland and her friends motives in Ukraine. Of course he had to shut up immediately and never touched the subject again. Everybody knows the rules , you anti-semites , LOL.

    It is all paid for by the biggest Democratic and Republican donors. Thiel is a big backer of Desantis so that is a done deal for the chosen ones too.
    Trump was already bought and paid for years ago when he was saved from bankruptcy by them and became Cohens NY mafia’s biggest donor.
    Then he took the easy route and married in , the old move that seals the deal.
    It’s all good , just a play of consciousness.

    #121412
    Redneck
    Participant

    The majority of this is crap but towards the end there are some interesting points made. In particular where Putin says that he Russia is only bluffing the West by the development of the new nuclear weapons . Basically the idea was that with a newer bigger and better nuclear arsenal Russia would never have to fight a conventional war . So all the oligarchs in charge of supplying and developing the conventional forces just stole the money for themselves. After all Putin knew they would never be needed. This is reflected in the Russian state news of late with a lot of anger about the disarray and the lack of proper equipment directed was at the oligarchs and their fleet of mega yachts that are valued at more than what has been spent on the entire Russian navy over the last fifteen years.
    Naturally the 99% here can’t watch it , it is just too emotionally damaging .

    #121413
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Wow!

    The scriptwriters for the NATOstan actors have some very difficult decisions to make over the coming few days.

    Having knocked out 50% of the Ukrainian electricity grid, the Russians have issued an ultimatum requiring Ukraine to negotiate before the end of the month or have the entire grid demolished, bringing everything industrial in Ukraine to a complete standstill.

    Apparently, at this stage the official Ukrainian response is to tell the entire population still left in Ukraine to be prepared to evacuate right out of the country by the end of November, just 11 days!

    Surreality taken to a new level.

    #121414
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Markster: “South Africa and Africa are two different places and two different names. One is a country, and the other is a continent.”

    One continent/two continents (man-made division with the Panama Canal, as I recall, so I guess in a sense it was one before that). Matter of semantics since it’s still ONE country (South Africa/United State of America) appropriating the name of ONE continent (or two).

    Somehow we have reached the point where we can’t do much of anything but criticize habits that were established decades ago. Probably a symptom of the breakdown. Like you, I don’t actually care either. Calling it America is much easier than spelling out the United States of America every time it’s discussed. Kind of like how we shorten most proper names because it’s easier. Along those lines, shortening the name to USA would also be off the table since … well, you can work that out …

    AFKTT: “Whereas we can be absolutely certain atmospheric CO2 will be significantly higher next year, and we can be absolutely certain the amount of oil available will be less next year, we cannot be certain Lake Mead will continue to fall. It just very much looks that way.”

    This doesn’t respond to the point I was making. Water is an issue in CA because there’s only so much (and for so long) the Colorado River, snow caps, rainfall, and ground water can change a desert. Kind of like if a household with a well left all their taps open for weeks until the well ran dry. CA’s well is running dry.

    The bottom line is, humans are NOT that important to the earth. The earth will exist well beyond humans because we ain’t all that, no matter how much we kid ourselves otherwise. We’ll work it out as things go along as best we can. When we can’t, we’re gone. “Reducing CO2” isn’t going to change anything, especially the delusional belief that we can continue to maintain what would be a desert area as the idyllic home of tens of millions of people and fertile farmland.

    #121415
    EoinW
    Participant

    Renaissance music lovers? I must drop by later in the day more often.

    My favourite Flemish composer is Obrecht. Ockeghem & Dufay I find to be borderline Medieval. Always interesting but doesn’t send my heart soaring like the later music does.

    Yes, I admit it, I do like the English. They are good for some things. John Sheppard’s “Media Vita”, Tallis’ “Spem in Alium” pretty incredible compositions. And I’ll listen to any sacred music by Byrd.

    Last name drop: the Spainard Victoria. Such beautiful music!

    #121416

    Aware of their methods of reaching their goals,
    Their debts exceed any redemption.
    So they do some good deeds (keeping hold of controls)
    Hoping heaven will grant an exemption.

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